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From: Jeffrey Canton <jeffrey_canton>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 06:50:35 -0700 (PDT)
This has been a passionate discussion and I certainly have watched it with fascination. But I have to jump in with a repsonse to Debbie's posting.
While I would at no point disagree with Debbie that we need more literature by First Nations writers, I think it is a mistake not to let the process take it's own course and lobby for publishers to create an artifical First Nations list - in Canada, main stream publishers like HarperCollins Canada, Key Porter Books and Doubleday Canada are publishing writers like novelist Thomas King and Thompson Highway on their own initiative ; Kids Can Press and Stoddart are publishing Jan Waboose. Pemmican, our only First People's Press has been building a reputation for good books by Native writers. But it takes time to grow a literature and you can't force it - if you do you too often get dry and didactic books that don't sing the way books needs to. I'd say that publishers need to be aware of the need for good books by First Peoples writers and it's our responsibility to let them know when they are succeeding or not as in the case of The Birchbark House versus the Rinaldi book.
As children's lit spokespeople let's make sure that good books get all the attention they deserve and lobby for more of them but let's not try to create an artificial literature to fill the gap - better to have a handful of excellent books than a library that's full to the brim with a host of mediocre titles.
Jeffrey Canton Children's book Review editor Books in Canada
--- Debbie Reese wrote:
====
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com
Received on Thu 28 Oct 1999 08:50:35 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 06:50:35 -0700 (PDT)
This has been a passionate discussion and I certainly have watched it with fascination. But I have to jump in with a repsonse to Debbie's posting.
While I would at no point disagree with Debbie that we need more literature by First Nations writers, I think it is a mistake not to let the process take it's own course and lobby for publishers to create an artifical First Nations list - in Canada, main stream publishers like HarperCollins Canada, Key Porter Books and Doubleday Canada are publishing writers like novelist Thomas King and Thompson Highway on their own initiative ; Kids Can Press and Stoddart are publishing Jan Waboose. Pemmican, our only First People's Press has been building a reputation for good books by Native writers. But it takes time to grow a literature and you can't force it - if you do you too often get dry and didactic books that don't sing the way books needs to. I'd say that publishers need to be aware of the need for good books by First Peoples writers and it's our responsibility to let them know when they are succeeding or not as in the case of The Birchbark House versus the Rinaldi book.
As children's lit spokespeople let's make sure that good books get all the attention they deserve and lobby for more of them but let's not try to create an artificial literature to fill the gap - better to have a handful of excellent books than a library that's full to the brim with a host of mediocre titles.
Jeffrey Canton Children's book Review editor Books in Canada
--- Debbie Reese wrote:
====
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com
Received on Thu 28 Oct 1999 08:50:35 AM CDT
